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At that moment a band at the corner struck up "La Fille de Madame Angot," and the illusion was complete. The Hotel du Bien-être was kept by the Gerhardts, a delightful family of father, mother, and eleven children. It was a happy time in Antwerp for the Osbourne children, for this large family of young people provided them with pleasant companionship.
He would beg her to repeat a phrase after him; he taught her how to emphasize the rhythm, and was anxious that she should learn the legend of Madame Angot. 'Now, said Dick, 'I'll sing the symphony, and we'll go through it with all the effects one, two, three, four, ta ra ta ta ta ta ta.
She laughed, and the lurking echoes clasped the music of that laughter in their wanton arms and hurried it across the river. "Sing to me," said I. Then imagine my surprise I, who had heard nothing but German fall from her lips? when in a heavenly contralto she sang a chanson from "La Fille de Madame Angot," an opera forgotten these ten years! "Elle est tellement innocente!"
One's ear seemed to assure one that Madame Angot had been laid under contribution to tickle the ears of a Mandalay audience, yet how could this be?
To find out who she was, to meet her, to know her, if possible, this was his final determination. He rang for paper and a messenger, and wrote: "Madame Angot. There is a letter for you in the mail-department of this office." This time his initials were not necessary. Once the message was on its way, he sought Merrihew, whom he found knocking the balls about in a spiritless manner.
Especially is this the case with me, who have been constantly interrupted in writing by my neighbour's daughters strumming the only two tunes they know and those tunes 'Pinafore, and 'Madame Angot. But if you are out for a walk on a summer's evening, and look into the windows of working men's cottages, you will see the old folk after their day's labour gathered round the piano in the sitting-room to hear their daughters play.
Out of the unromantic night, out of the somber blurring January fog, came a voice lifted in song, a soprano, rich, full and round, young, yet matured, sweet and mysterious as a night-bird's, haunting and elusive as the murmur of the sea in a shell: a lilt from La Fille de Madame Angot, a light opera long since forgotten in New York. Hillard, genuinely astonished, lowered his pipe and listened.
After dinner things usually woke up a little, for Eileen was made to play and even sing from the scores of "Madame Angot" and other recent comic operas a form of music that had not hitherto come her way, though it was the only form the music-racks held to feed the grand piano with.
Clarville, the author of "Madame Angot," transformed Madame Marneff into a virtuous woman, but he did not write to the papers to say that Balzac owed him a debt of gratitude on that account. The star of Miss Braddon has finally set in the obscure regions of servantgalism; Ouida and Rhoda Broughton continue to rewrite the books they wrote ten years ago; Mrs Lynn Linton I have not read.
The tendency of Dick's conversation was to wander, but after having indulged for some time in the pleasures of retrospection he returned to the subject in point: 'Well, it's a bit difficult to explain, Dick said, 'but, you see, this lady, Mrs. Ede, wasn't very happy at home, and having a nice voice you must hear her sing some Angot and such an ear!
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